How do the feeding, bread discourse and disciples’ responses develop?

Across the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias, Jesus withdrew to a hillside, trailed by a vast crowd drawn by the miraculous healings He performed upon the sick. With the Jewish feast of the Pasch approaching, Jesus tested Philip by inquiring where they might purchase food for such a gathering. Philip remarked that two hundred pennyworth of bread would fail to buy enough bread for each person to receive even a tiny portion. Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, mentioned that a youth present had five barley loaves and two fish, though he questioned what so little could accomplish amidst so great a multitude. Jesus directed the people, numbering about five thousand men, to sit where there was much grass. Taking the bread, He gave thanks and distributed it to the seated crowd, doing the same with the fish until all had eaten their fill. When the meal concluded, He instructed the disciples to gather the remaining fragments so nothing would be wasted, filling twelve baskets with leftover morsels. Astounded by the miracle, the people hailed Jesus as the long-expected prophet arriving into the world. Recognizing that they intended to seize Him to proclaim Him an earthly king, Jesus departed alone into the heights of the mountain.

When evening came, the disciples embarked on a boat toward Capharnaum. While out upon the water, a great wind raised the sea. Having rowed about twenty-five or thirty furlongs, they were terrified to see Jesus walking across the water toward their vessel. He reassured them, identifying Himself and urging them not to be afraid. They were willing to take Him into the boat, and presently the boat was at its destination on the shore. The following day, crowds left behind realized that only one boat had departed the evening before without Jesus, yet He was no longer on their side of the lake. Boarding other craft arriving from Tiberias, they crossed over to Capharnaum in search of Him. Finding Him across the water, they asked when He had crossed over. Jesus responded that they sought Him not on account of the divine signs they had seen, but simply because they had eaten the bread and satisfied their physical hunger. He urged them not to expend their labor on food that perishes, but to seek the imperishable sustenance that endures unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give, whom God the Father has sealed. When they asked what works God required of them, He stated that the fundamental work of God is to believe in the One whom He has sent.

The crowd then demanded a miraculous sign to authenticate His claim, recalling how their ancestors had eaten manna in the wilderness, citing scripture that he gave them bread from heaven. Jesus clarified that it was not Moses who provided heavenly bread, but His Father who imparts the true bread from heaven, which descends to give life to the world. When they pleaded to receive this bread continually, Jesus declared that He Himself is the bread of life: whoever approaches Him will never hunger, and whoever believes in Him will never thirst. He noted their persistent lack of faith despite having seen Him, yet affirmed that everyone given to Him by the Father will come to Him, and He will never cast out anyone who approaches. He explained that He had descended from heaven not to execute His own personal will, but the will of the Father who sent Him, which is to preserve all entrusted to Him and raise them up on the last day. He also says His Father’s will is that everyone seeing the Son and believing in Him may have everlasting life and be raised on the last day. The Jews began murmuring against Him because He claimed to be the bread descending from heaven, objecting that they knew His earthly parents, Joseph and his mother. Jesus answered that they should stop murmuring among themselves, proclaiming that no person can come to Him unless drawn by the Father who sent Him, promising to resurrect every believer on the final day. (An eighteenth-century annotation by Bishop Challoner clarifies that this divine drawing operates not through forceful compulsion, but through the sweet and powerful invitations of heavenly grace).

Jesus cites the prophets’ saying that all will be taught of God: everyone hearing and learning from the Father comes to Him. He distinguishes this from seeing the Father, which belongs to the one who is of God, and repeats the promise of everlasting life for belief. Jesus then continues, contrasting the perishable wilderness manna—which could not save their forefathers from physical death—with the living bread from heaven that is associated with not dying and everlasting life in His teaching. He solemnly declared that the bread He offers is His own flesh given for the life of the world. This announcement provoked intense dispute among His hearers, who argued among themselves how anyone could give his flesh to eat. Jesus said that unless they partake of the Son of Man's flesh and drink His blood, they have no life within them. He affirmed that whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood possesses eternal life and will be raised up on the last day, because His flesh is true food and His blood true drink. Whoever partakes of His body and blood abides in Him and He in them. As the living Father sent Him and He lives by the Father, the one eating Him will live by Him. (Challoner’s pastoral commentary observes that the faithful fulfill the precept even by receiving in one kind, because body and blood cannot be separated; the promise concerns worthy reception).

Many of His own followers found this teaching intolerable, complaining that the discourse was too difficult to accept. Discerning their murmuring, Jesus asked whether His words scandalized them, pointing out that their carnal objections would be challenged when they witnessed the Son of Man ascending to where He had been previously. (Challoner notes that Christ’s reference to His Ascension refutes gross cannibalistic notions by showing He would carry His living body into heaven rather than leaving it to be mangled on earth). Jesus explained that it is the spirit that gives life while the flesh profits nothing, and that His words are spirit and life, The edition separately interprets the flesh that profits nothing as dead flesh imagined in a gross way and natural, carnal understanding refusing Christ’s spirit and words. It rejects applying that statement to Christ’s living flesh received in the sacrament with soul and divinity, points to His taking flesh and dying for people, and explains spirit and life as the heavenly sacrament giving spirit, grace and life. The admitted annotation contains a repeated damaged clause; no new doctrine is inferred from that printing. Because He knew from the beginning who refused to believe and who would betray Him, He reiterated that faith is a gift of the Father. Consequently, numerous disciples abandoned Him and walked with Him no longer. Turning to the Twelve, Jesus asked whether they also intended to leave. Simon Peter responded , asking to whom they could go when Jesus has the words of eternal life, confessing Him as the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus concluded by acknowledging His choice of the twelve, saying one of them is a devil, referring to Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, who would betray Him although one of the Twelve.